The very first song that was finished both lyrically and musically for my next album is a simple love story named Tapestry. I wrote it during my last cabin get-away in North Carolina. (I get a lot done at cabins)
It’s about a rough man, the salt of the earth type, who works as a wool merchant. His wife, the woman he is deeply in love with, is a weaver. At its heart, it’s an intimate look at a man providing and a woman refining his provision into a work of beauty. The end result is a tapestry.
But it’s not just a tapestry in the physical sense…something made of wool to be worn or displayed. They’re also weaving a tapestry of love. A tapestry formed by those intrinsic attributes we possess that when combined weave an indescribable and utterly human work of art…true love. This is their brief story, written by DC Bowden. The lyrics I wrote for the song follow the story. On my next post you’ll be able to listen to the demo.
Tapestry
He blinked as he emerged from the rough shed into the afternoon sun. A million bits of straw swirled in the air in front of his eyes, reflecting the sun and accentuating the soft golden color of the landscape. He looked down and gently brushed off the white fibers clinging to his apron as the last newly pink sheep skittered past him as it ran out of the shed.
He turned and slowly began to pile the wool onto a large canvas he had laid on the ground. It was not the soft, white delicate stuff he knew it would become. It was raw and dirty and smelled like the earth and animal dung. It was matted with bits of dirt and hay.
When he had loaded on the canvas all he knew he could carry, he hoisted it on his back and slowly trudged up the hill to the house. His knees ached from kneeling over the sheep all day. His shoulders burned from the shearing.
He made his way to the little work area next to the front door and laid the unkempt and dirty bundle at his wife’s feet. Their eyes met for a momentary conversation and then without a word, she began to sort through the new load of wool.
She took it and combed through it, removing the impurities. He stopped and watched as the wool fibers spun through her slender and fragile fingers. He could see the clumpy handfuls right before they slipped through the tips of her thumb and forefinger and then emerged on the other side of the wheel. Under her mastery, the fibers bound to each other to become a single thread of pure, white wool.
He couldn’t help but stare at the running thread in the afternoon stillness. He forgot the pain in his joints and the never-ending burden of tomorrow. His thoughts were now threaded together as singularly as the white line he watched, hypnotized by it’s movement, his heartbeat synchronizing to the slow and steady pulsing of her spinning wheel.
This wool, this simple substance from the animals he tended was being transformed. It was the thread that ran through their lives. In his calloused and curled hands he brought her the rawness of earth. This stinking pile of animal hair, the best of all his labors…he laid before her feet.
And she took it and wove it into something beautiful.
This common act.
Their tapestry.
Lyrics
I lay them at her feet
All of the pieces incomplete
With one move of her hand
She takes it far from where it began
I’d be so lost …without it
I’d be so lost…about it
What I’m saying is:
There’s a fire that; I stay close to
It warms my hands
You wouldn’t understand.
You play my favorite song – Keep playing!
The laughter of your wheel dancing all day long
I’ll spend my life with you
Our love; like threads upon a loom.
I’d be so lost…without it
I’d be so lost…about it
What I’m saying is:
There’s a fire that; I stay close to
It warms my soul
You wouldn’t understand
Our scars only reveal,
Two parts bound together stronger still
I to her and she to me,
This common act; our tapestry.
I’d be so lost…without it
I’d be so lost…about it
What I’m saying is:
There’s a fire that; I stay close to
It warms my soul
You wouldn’t understand
There’s a fire that; I stay close to
It warms my soul
When it goes cold
You wouldn’t understand
Tags: justin caldwell, New Album, New Song, Short Story, Song Inspiration, Song-writing, Tapestry